Direct selling offering women self-employment opportunities

FICCI and KPMG have released a report titled,“The Contribution of Direct Selling to Building India” for 2016. It looks at how the direct selling industry has positively contributed to several flagship schemes launched by the government of India in the past two years. For example, the Skill India scheme seeks to provide the institutional capacity to train a minimum of 400 million people by 2022. The direct selling industry annually trains over five million people in marketing and communication skills, personality development and leadership skills. As part of Make in India many direct selling companies now make in India. Some rely on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) for manufacturing their products, investing in and providing the right equipment and machines to the MSMEs for production. Further, due to the dominance of women-centric products offered under direct selling, the industry provides self-employment opportunities to a large number of women. In 2015 alone, it has provided self-employment to over three million female distributors. By providing income generation opportunities and trainings, direct selling promotes holistic development of women.

Joy Chauhan, agency head, JWT Bengaluru, which has conceptualised the campaign, says the challenge for the team was to strike a chord with the masses who already have a perception about the Max brand and yet differentiate the brand in a category where catalogue advertising rules.

The inspiration for the final message came from the simple insight that shopping makes people happy. “We just had to put this insight and brand Max together and come up with a narrative aimed at reinforcing the brand’s ties with its loyal customer base. Hence, a family scenario where you see a husband and a father making his wife and daughter happy by shopping at a Max store,” says Chauhan.

According to Mahendra, fashion today is a crowded space with the presence of a large number of brands and apparel chains. Max is focused on getting large volumes and steadily expanding its geographical footprint. The company is looking at hitting a sales target of ~2,350 crore and taking up its store count from 160-odd to 190 by the year-end.